Muslim coalition to Cruz: Drop hate leader as adviser

031816

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-—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—-

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/17/16) – The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a coalition of leading national and local American Muslim organizations, today called on GOP presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to drop designated hate group leader Frank Gaffney Jr. as a foreign policy adviser.SEE: Cruz Assembles an Unlikely Team of Foreign-Policy Rivals

Gaffney’s organization, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Cruz’s list of foreign policy advisers reportedly also includes three people who work for Gaffney’s organization, including Fred Fleitz, Clare Lopez and Jim Hanson. Also on Cruz’s list is Andrew McCarthy, who has echoed Gaffney’s view that Muslims are seeking to impose Islamic law in America.

Cruz also named retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin to his list of advisers. Boykin has in the past stated that “[Islam] should not be protected under the First Amendment,” that there should be “no mosques in America” and that there can be no interfaith dialogue or cooperation between Muslims and Christians.

“To appoint a notorious conspiracy theorist and hate group leader to such an important role in a presidential campaign sends the wrong message to American voters and to the international community,” said USCMO Secretary General Oussama Jammal. “We urge Senator Cruz to drop Frank Gaffney as a foreign policy adviser and to instead name a person who would base his or her advice on accurate information, not on fear-mongering.”

Of Gaffney, the SPLC notes:

“Gaffney’s wild-eyed accusations would certainly fit right into the red-baiting [House Un-American Activities Committee] tradition, judging from his long history of smears and innuendo aimed at Muslims. . . Among the ‘enablers’ of civilization jihad in America, President Obama is near the top of Gaffney’s list. But Gaffney has tried – and failed – to gather support for baseless suggestions that Obama is a practicing Muslim. . . Gaffney’s scurrilous broad-brush tactics have a serious effect on the lives of all Muslims in America, from students and housewives to corporate executives and budding politicians. A shadow of unfounded suspicion follows even the most upright Muslim citizens.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has referred to Gaffney as “one of the country’s leading anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists.”

Gaffney is a key promoter of the bizarre conspiracy theory that Muslims in public service are infiltrating the government on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He has questioned “whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States,” claimed the Missile Defense Agency logo is part of a “worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam,” claimed an aide to Hillary Clinton was a secret Muslim Brotherhood operative, was a key witness for the plaintiffs in a controversial lawsuit seeking to block construction of a Tennessee mosque, promoted the debunked claim that Dearborn, Mich., is a “ghetto enclave in which it’s Muslim-only,” and hosted “white supremacist” Jared Taylor on his “Secure Freedom” radio program.

Gaffney’s staff attorney, David Yerushalmi, has advocated outlawing the practice of Islam in America and is the key promoter of anti-Islam bills in state legislatures nationwide, including one being voted on today by the Idaho legislature.

When leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, he quoted from a sham survey commissioned by Gaffney’s organization.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization and a member of USCMO, details Gaffney’s and the Center for Security Policy’s role in America’s Islamophobia network in its report, “Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States,” and on its website, Islamophobia.org.

SEE: Legislating Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact in the United States

The Islamic Circle of North America is a leading American Muslim organization dedicated to the betterment of society through the application of Islamic values. Since 1968, ICNA has worked to build relations between communities by devoting itself to education, outreach, social services and relief efforts.